Across the Universe: A Movie Review

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

They slither wildly as they slip their way across the universe

Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting through my open mind

Possessing and caressing me

Jai guru deva om

My first encounter with the song which the lyric I write above was when I watched a movie called “Pleasantville” together with my classmates as a writing class activity. Later I found out that, originally, it is a song from the legendary band, the Beatles.

Several years after that, a musical movie titled “Across the Universe” was released. It was Oprah who brought the information to me in my living room. She was interviewing the director of the movie, Julie Taymor, the crew, and a bunch of casts of the movie. As a fan of the Beatles, one of the many things that I share with my father, I decided right away that I had to see this movie. Plus, Oprah had done more than a good job to convince me that it was a good movie and worth watching. The impressive performance from the casts in the end of the show, singing “All You Need is Love” gave it all. They really could sing!

I remember that at the same time, “Mamma Mia!” was playing in movie theaters so I couldn’t be more excited. I also like ABBA’s songs so the news added more joy to my world at that time. Many of you may not agree with this, but after I watched both of them, “Across the Universe” is way a much superior movie. I know that the two movies are in the different leagues so comparing them may not be a wise thing to do, yet the incapability of “Mamma Mia!”’s director to blend the songs into the storyline and find actors who could do at least decent singings for a musical movie were way beyond my tolerance. I would prefer they never made the movie version of the story and stuck with the stage production instead.

On the other hand, “Across the Universe” may be a non box-office movie type, and it is not, but it delivers a very deep message for us all to contemplate. The setting was based on the 1960s of United States. In this period, America suffered hard from the racism and segregation inside and Vietnam war out side. This is a situation which is in a way I find very much the same with the situation in our country right now. Our country suffers from many politics, economics, and law scandals and still we still be able to put so much concern and energy on foreign issues such as Israel-Palestinian war and Obama’s policies. Endless demonstrations are what we see almost everyday. People start to lose faith to current government. But there are always people who just try to live their lives unaffected as if nothing happen, because that’s all that they can do.

The story went as simple as this. Jude is a young boy from Liverpool who sails to US to find his biological father. He easily finds the man, and easily is disappointed to him to, since his father turns out to be just an ordinary guy, not a great professor as he always imagined. Then he meets an American student, Max, whom later he will through many experiences with. Starting from there, Jude begins his journey crossing the US. He meets Lucy, Max’s sister, Sadie and Jo-jo, cool rock artists, Prudence, a lesbian Asian girl, and some other people which each contributes to him to understand the meaning of life.

Julie Taymor did a very wonderful job in directing this movie. Even though it gets a bit boring and painful for eyes in the middle of the story, overall the movie is very well done. The songs are so solidly blended into the story that you would never think that they were made long before the story was written. The casts do not sing songs in this movie. They put melody in their lines. The lyrics are their lines. The visualization is amazing. The scene sequence when “Let It Be” is sung is a masterpiece. Through these scenes, we can see how the country was in a very vulnerable moment. How they sent their best young men to the unknown land, fighting for something that they didn’t even understand, and let them die in vain. While at home, the situation was not better, riots break everywhere, many people died too, also for nothing.

Another great visualization is also showed in the scene where Max is reporting himself for the army. He doesn’t want to go to the war, but the country requires him to. We can see how “Uncle Sam” welcomes the reluctant Max with “I Want You” and put him through a series of imaginative event of test and check ups, very eager in sending him right to the battle field.

“Revolution,” another political song by John Lennon, becomes one of most favorite songs in this movie together with “I Want You,” “Let It Be,” and “Oh Darling!.” I feel that this song is a very good contemplation for us these days. With so many terrorism acts, scandals, and natural disasters which can make us all gone mad, we need to keep cool and start to change things from ourselves. There’s no use of taking acts based on emotions only. All those demonstrations, all that accusations and foul words addressed to people. All will just make the bad situation becomes worse. Because in the end, just like the song says, it’s gonna be alright.

At the end, the movie closes with “All You Need is Love.” Because we already know, that it is really love and understanding that we need to keep us strong to go through even the hardest and worst situation.